Beijing Today

News, features, art and culture from the Chinese capital

[beijingtoday]

Jiang Huawen, a third-year grad student at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (NJUPT), leaped from the school’s teaching building in an apparent suicide on January 25. After the 25-year-old’s death, an alleged close friend of Jiang published an article condemning Zhang Daiyuan, Jiang’s former tutor, for pushing Jiang to his death. That article began …

[beijingtoday]

High school admission tests may soon include an oral English section to test an applicant’s experience in practical use of the language, according to a January 25 announcement by Zang Tiejun, deputy dean of the Beijing Education Exam Authority. The details of the test are still being discussed by the committee. Students who take the …

[cgtnofficial]

Dramatic China-related winners of World Press Photo competition

Winners of the 59th World Press Photo competition have been announced on Thursday. As one of the world’s most prestigious press photography contest, its jury has selected the best pictures that represent what has happened over 2015. Of the winning photos selected from 82,951 entries made by 5,775 photographers from 128 countries and regions, four are about China subjects, with two of them taken by Chinese photographers. Take a look.

[beijingtoday]

Learn to Make Braised Prawns

Spring Festival is when Chinese families come together to reunite and share delicious food. Prawns were pricy commodities in ancient times, and were considered a luxurious food reserved for the holidays. Today, prawns are more affordable, and people can have them at any time. But many families continue the tradition of having prawns during their holiday feast.

Ingredients

500g prawns

ginger, thinly sliced

scallions, thinly sliced

garlic

Chinese cooking wine

sugar

white vinegar

salt

The Steps

Clean the prawns. Add Chinese cooking wine to a bowl and mix in the prawns. Allow them to marinate for 10 minutes.

Mix the white vinegar, sugar and salt into a bowl and set it aside to use as the sauce.

Heat up a wok and add the prawns. Add the ginger when one side of the prawns turns orange. Add the scallions and then the sauce bowl.

Cover with a lid, and braise for 2-3 minutes before serving.

[beijingtoday]

Wang Xin (pseudonym), a young man in Henan Province, recently made headlines when he sued a local hospital for failing to inform him that his wife was infected with HIV during their premarital health check. Wang and his wife Ye Qing (pseudonym) married last March. Prior to their marriage, the couple conducted a premarital health …

[beijingtoday]

In the 2015 documentary The Chinese Mayor, the mayor of Datong, Shanxi province, has a wild dream. He wants to rebuild the ancient city to attract tourists and boost the local economy. But in order to do that, he needs to relocate half a million people, bulldoze their houses and build the fake ancient city …

[beijingtoday]

The comedy and detective rom Detective Chinatown has been a hit with viewers this New Year season. That’s been good news for director Chen Sicheng, who desperately needed a win at the box office after his last two duds. Wang Baoqiang plays Tang Ren, a formerly famous detective who escapes to Thailand and spends his …

[beijingtoday]

Blue has an implied meaning of melancholy and quiet. It’s perfectly suited to be the dominant hue in artist Zhang Xing’s paintings. Zhang describes herself as a romanticist, but most of her work utilizes lonesome tones and sad symbols to cast a bleak reflection of the real world. While her early work is cast in …

[cgtnofficial]

A frosty beauty

The cold wave chilled people in northeast China but brought ice flowers “in bloom”. Blanketed in heavy snow, the windows of a building in Heihe, a city of Heilongjiang Province displayed the ice flowers. Glistened in the sun, these crystal-clear frost flowers became quite mesmerizing. The ice flower, or window frost, is formed when a glass pane is exposed to very cold air on the outside and warmer, moist air on the inside. Water vapor then condenses on the glass forming the frost patterns.

[cgtnofficial]

Happy Chinese New Year from baby pandas!

It’s only days before the Chinese New Year arrives, and even pandas are excited about it. On Wednesday, giant panda cubs in Sichuan’s Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base had their pictures taken at a New Year themed playground decorated just for them.

China’s Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda, which is in charge of the base, says these panda cubs are at a crucial stage of learning survival skills. The staff give them toys to help them prepare for their development, and play with them to increase their activity.

The research center based in Sichuan Province currently has 218 captive-bred pandas, and is the largest such base in the world, according to chinanews.com. In 2015, a record 23 pandas survived among the total of 26 pandas born that year.

[beijingtoday]

Bob Marley, one of the most talented reggae musicians, is the one who brought Jamaican music to the world. His distinctive songwriting and vocal style resonated with audiences worldwide. This Saturday, One Drop will perform at Yugong Yishan to mark the artist’s birthday. One Drop was created about three years ago. The expat band plays …

[beijingtoday]

Learn to Make Papaya Carp Soup

Eating fish at the beginning of a new year is a Chinese tradition. Like most holiday traditions, it involves a play on words in the phrase “Niannian you yu,” meaning each year in abundance. Since both fish and abundance share the pronunciation “yu,”eating fish is considered an auspicious way to start the year. Try this carp and papaya soup if you need a new way to prepare your new year’s fish.

Ingredients:

1 carp

half a papaya

4 slices of ginger

scallions

salt

The Steps:

Scale and gut the fish. Peel the papaya and remove its seeds. Cube the flesh. Peel the ginger.

Oil a pan and begin heating it on your stovetop. When it is 70 percent heated, place the carp in the pan and fry it until both sides turn yellow.

Add some water to a wok; add the fried fish and some scallions.

Cook the fish over a high flame until the water turns white.

Add the ginger and papaya cubes. Cover the wok and continue to boil for 40 minutes. Season with salt before serving.

[beijingtoday]

Ever wondered why you can’t get enough of Guijie’s amazing hotpot? According to China’s food investigators, it may be because they are addictive. At least if you believe the China Food and Drug Administration’s hype. On January 21, the CFDA announced the results of its national investigation of restaurants. Five in Beijing were among the …

[beijingtoday]

It didn’t take long for the public to destroy “Kangkang,” CCTV new mascot for the the Year of the Monkey on January 21. The sketch, a smiling icon painted in ink by contemporary artist Han Meilin, was initially charming. Mei is an exceptionally talented designer best known for her work on the Fuwa, the immensely …

[beijingtoday]

China’s widening wealth gap is one of the country’s fastest growing social concerns, according to the recently released 2015 China Livelihood Development Report. The report series draws on research conducted by Peking University’s China Family Panel Studies, which last year polled 14,960 families in 25 provinces about their living situation, problems and the country’s social …

[beijingtoday]

Aside from its Buddhist and Daoist temples and mosques, Beijing also has numerous historic churches. Many were demolished and rebuilt several times over the past few centuries as they fell victim to earthquakes, fires and popular revolts. Today, some are caught in-between global and Chinese religious administrations. Most lack the rich artwork of European churches …

[beijingtoday]

Vipshop, an online platform popular with female shoppers, kicked off 2016 with a credibility crisis. On January 2, Vipshop admitted to selling fake Moutai liquor, a popular brand of Chinese spirits. In its statement, Vipshop said it severed relations with the fake Moutai supplier and reported the case to the police. Counterfeit goods are hardly …